November 20
November 20: Sophie Cabot Black
Sophie Cabot Black’s poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Bomb, The New Yorker, Granta, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry, and Tin House, among other journals. Her work has also appeared in various anthologies, among them Best American Poetry, Fatherhood, Doggerel, and Poems About Horses
November 20: Sophie Cabot Black
Sophie Cabot Black’s poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Bomb, The New Yorker, Granta, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry, and Tin House, among other journals. Her work has also appeared in various anthologies, among them Best American Poetry, Fatherhood, Doggerel, and Poems About Horses, anthologies from the Everyman’s Library Series.
Her three books from Graywolf Press are The Misunderstanding of Nature, which received the Norma Farber Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Descent, which earned the Connecticut Book Award and was nominated for the 2005 Colorado Book Award, and The Exchange, of which Publisher’s Weekly said: “Black weaves sheer elegance and devastating knowing” (starred review).
And of her newest collection, Geometry of the Restless Herd (Copper Canyon), Publisher’s Weekly said: “”Cabot Black’s stunning, fable-like fourth collection urges readers, ‘do not expect the known; you were not there.’ This unusual and poignant volume is equal parts gothic and pastoral, full of incisively written imagery characterized by sparse stanzas that allow each line to shine. . . . The poems in this collection run no risk of being mistaken for another poet’s oeuvre. Singular and striking in their movements and tone, they are a testament to delicate beauty. Cabot Black walks the tightrope between the gnomic and the visceral, and sticks the landing with the utmost skill and tenderness.”—(starred review)
She has been awarded several fellowships, including at the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown, and the Radcliffe Institute, and appears at national literary festivals such as the Los Angeles Times Book Festival and the Dodge Poetry Festival.
Black has taught at the New School, Rutgers, and Columbia University, and continues to teach at the 92nd St Y and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She holds degrees from Marlboro College and Columbia University.
Of her work NPR has called her “a poet’s poet”, Billy Collins has said, “she has concocted a way of speaking in poetry that’s very fresh and daring”, and from the Library Journal: “lovely work for many readers; surely even those who don’t typically read poetry will find understanding here”.
She has also published several essays, translated poems, and more recently finished two song cycles and a libretto.
She was born in New York City, the daughter of a Broadway producer and an opera producer, raised on a small farm in New England, and currently divides her time between New England, New York, and Colorado.
November 20
Featured Musician: Dr. Westchesterson
Dr. Westchesterson is a musician/vocalist/songwriter/producer whose work spans multiple genres. Emerging in 2012 as the most famous rapper in Western Massachusetts the Dr. has since produced an album of 70’s yacht rock inspired material and another album of Bob Dylan/Neil Young influenced tunes emerge
Featured Musician: Dr. Westchesterson
Dr. Westchesterson is a musician/vocalist/songwriter/producer whose work spans multiple genres. Emerging in 2012 as the most famous rapper in Western Massachusetts the Dr. has since produced an album of 70’s yacht rock inspired material and another album of Bob Dylan/Neil Young influenced tunes emerged. While Dr. W is widely known in these parts due to his summer residency on Block Island these days can mostly be found performing solo in the Westerly/Mystic area.
November 20- Julia Meylor
Julia Meylor lives in Groton, where she is retired from careers as a news editor and reporter for a daily newspaper in New Jersey, a senior corporate communications manager in Rhode Island, and a high school English and journalism teacher in Massachusetts. She was the winner of the 2026 Connecticut Poetry Award and the 2023-24 Nutmeg Awar
Julia Meylor lives in Groton, where she is retired from careers as a news editor and reporter for a daily newspaper in New Jersey, a senior corporate communications manager in Rhode Island, and a high school English and journalism teacher in Massachusetts. She was the winner of the 2026 Connecticut Poetry Award and the 2023-24 Nutmeg Award from the Connecticut Poetry Society. While teaching, she took part in the Rhode Island Writing Project and was selected for a National Institute for the Humanities teacher fellowship.
Her poetry has been published in numerous national and regional literary journals for several decades, including Connecticut River Review, Blue Earth Review, South Dakota Review, and the anthology, Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined (3: A Taos Press). She has a master’s degree in teaching from Rhode Island College and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Iowa State University.
When she moved to Groton several years ago, one of the first things she did was to attend an Art Cafe Mystic event, and soon after joined the board. Much of her writing is about the emotional geography of place and how our roots shape us throughout our lives. She has two self-published chapbooks and is working on another.